


For Want of a Kiss

by suitesamba



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, character death (not main character)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-17
Updated: 2012-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-31 08:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus has never  kissed his current lover because every time he kisses someone, they end up dead.</p>
<p>Written for the 2012 Severus Sighs Anti Valentine's Day fest on IJ to the prompt "Every time Severus kisses someone, they end up dead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Want of a Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to abrae for the beta and to veridari for the pre-read.

*

Severus has never kissed his lover, because every time he kisses someone, they end up dead.

They have shared everything else, and the want of a kiss is a deep nothingness, a chasm in their relationship. 

In the ordinary way of things, in the progression of desire, a kiss would precede nearly everything else. Lips to lips, light brushes or the desperate pressing of flesh to flesh, tongue to tongue. 

But Severus has learned. Everyone he kisses ends up dead. 

He has never been generous with kisses, growing up, as he did, in a home of little affection. He never once saw his mother and father share a kiss, and the kisses his mother bestowed on him in his youth were perfunctory, distracted brushes on the cheek; only once, when he was seventeen and leaving from platform 9 ¾ for his final year at Hogwarts, were they more deliberate. “My boy, my fine boy,” she had said, her eyes both clearer and sadder than usual, and kissing him on one cheek, then the other, then taking his face in her hands. “Do well this year, Severus.” 

His mother had a mother herself, a woman who had given birth so late in life that she was old beyond her days in Severus’ youth. The kisses he gave her had been mere brushes of lips to cheek, manifestations of his filial duty and not of any love to this shell of a woman. Her cheek was wrinkled and dry, like a too-old newspaper, yellow and brittle, always in danger of falling away to dust if handled too long or with too heavy a touch. 

He’d only ever kissed Lily that way - on the cheek, as if greeting a friend. No lover’s kiss for Lily, his best friend, but only ever his friend. Her cheek—smooth, fine, soft, sweet smelling—pecked quickly by the boy Severus, kissed longingly by the teenaged Severus, kissed desperately, bathed in tears, by a grieving young man, his heart broken, when her heart beat no more. 

He wonders if he should even count these three women among those he has kissed, although they, too, are dead and gone. 

But Regulus. Regulus he counts. 

Regulus—eighteen years old, wiry body, narrow hips, pressing eagerly against Severus as Severus presses him against the wall at Grimmauld Place. Pushing into the kiss with his entire body, young, inexperienced, but alive, so goddamn alive. 

Regulus, who would die defying Voldemort. 

His secret locked tightly inside a loyal-to-the-death house elf. 

Regulus. Beautiful Regulus. Hopeless Regulus. 

After Regulus was gone, he’d endured a long period of self-enforced celibacy, not trusting anyone, and when he could take it no longer, when his body insisted on _something_ , he’d resorted to Muggle prostitutes. But he’d never kissed them. Never shared that most intimate of intimate moments with bodies hired to sate his lust. 

He hadn’t kissed another soul for sixteen years, not on the hand, even on the cheek, never on the lips. 

Not until Albus. 

Toward the end, when the curse was consuming Albus faster than Severus could push it back, when his arm was half-eaten by the blackening waste, he’d knelt at Albus’ feet and dropped his head onto the old man’s lap and cried. 

And Albus had stroked his head, smoothed his hair, and lifted Severus’ face between his wrinkled hands, blue eyes bright with tears. 

“Severus,” he had said. “Severus my boy…you have done enough. There is now only this last thing to do for me.” 

And Severus had stood, pushing himself to his feet weakly, leaning toward that wrinkled face, pressing his lips to one cheek, then the other. Deliberately, as his mum had on that platform half a lifetime ago. He had kissed the worried forehead then as a mother kisses her babe at bedtime. 

Albus Dumbledore was dead two weeks later. 

But while he waited, waited for the time, the moment he knew would come, there was Charity. 

When Faith was challenged, and Hope was desperate, there was Charity. 

Sweet Charity. Coming to him for advice on handling his Slytherin fourth-years, walking around his office, examining his things, asking, quite naturally, if he was busy, if he would come with her to her quarters to look into a wardrobe that she was sure was inhabited by a boggart. 

She’d made him to tea, asked how he liked it, served it on a silver tea tray. He had kissed her on the sofa before the fire, the boggart forgotten. 

He’d kissed her later that night, curled around her soft body on her lovely four-poster. Had come back to her the next day, and the next. 

He’d seen her only once after killing Dumbledore. 

“Severus…please….please….”

Charity Burbage, dead dead dead dead dead. 

* *

Ten long years passed. 

A year as Headmaster of Hogwarts. 

Three months in St. Mungo’s. 

Two years of weakness, of recuperation. Two years of painful nerve regeneration, for his skin to go from cold and numb to lukewarm, waking up. 

Two years when he wouldn’t have felt a kiss, neither one given by his numb lips or received on his cold cheek. 

Five years traveling, spending the galleons Albus left him, seeing the world, blending in with Muggles, healing mind and body. 

Then, inconceivably, seeing the Boy Who Lived in a museum in Madrid. 

And the Boy Who Lived saw him. 

Coffee in the museum café. 

A walk in the Parque del Retiro. Tossing crumbs to the pigeons. 

Tapas. Drinks. Dinner. 

A plain room on an upper floor of a stately old hotel overlooking a bustling street. 

He had thought it would end there. Sweaty male bodies tangled together in the starched sheets, an engagement so unexpected that the sight of those green eyes that next morning, inches away from his own, startled him into silence. 

They had parted. Gone their separate ways to conclude separate trips, separate agendas. 

And had met again in August, in Diagon Alley, at Flourish and Botts. Had stared at each other across the room. He had watched Harry kiss the woman he was with, a woman that vaguely reminded him of Bellatrix Lestrange, kiss her on the cheek and take her hands in his, squeezing them. Watched him ruffle the head of the sandy-haired boy with her, bend to give the boy a hug, then stride casually over to him. 

They made it to Harry’s flat over Eeylops Owl Emporium. 

Casual meetings leading to not so casual sex, waking up in bed together. Harry making coffee for Severus in the French press. Severus’ omelets, dicing peppers and onions and mushrooms with potion-practiced fingers. 

A flat together in London close to the Leaky Cauldron. 

A cat, half-Kneazle, named Jiggers. 

But never a kiss. 

“Because everyone I kiss ends up dead,” Severus had told him when first Harry had asked. 

Harry had cocked his head, ever so slightly, and nodded once. 

* * *

And now, now Harry sits on the edge of the bed. Severus has just come home from the Ministry. He works there now, in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. But not with Harry. Severus is a backroom detective, a profiler of sorts. He interprets clues and hunts for connections but he isn’t on the street. 

Harry’s face is pale, his shoulders are stooped. He is bare-chested and barefoot, wearing only a pair of his oldest and most comfortable jeans. 

He looks at Severus, standing still in the doorway. 

“Hagrid,” he says, voice ragged. “Hagrid is dead.” 

And Severus walks toward him. He sits on the bed beside him and bends to remove his boots. Arms around Harry. Harry’s face in the hollow of his neck. Pulling him down on the soft mattress and carding his long fingers through the wild dark hair as Harry weeps. 

And weeps. 

_My first friend. Always there for me. Gave me Hedwig. Flying motorcycle. Hagrid._

Severus cannot help himself. The desire has never before been so strong. So overwhelming. The need never so great. 

“Shhh, Harry.” He kisses the corner of Harry’s eye, kisses lower still, the center of his cheek. His lips still remember the motion of kissing, still have the imprint of the sense memory upon them. 

Harry stills. 

“Severus….” His voice is low, a hushed whisper. 

Severus shudders. 

Then Harry is on him, lips descending on his mouth, gentle pressure building into pressing need as Harry devours him, unleashed, coaxing his tongue into dancing with him, sating his need. 

If Harry dies, Severus thinks, I will go with him. Follow him into the void. There will be no more years of suppression, no more careful restraint. 

If he gives his body, he will give his mouth as well. 

But for now, Harry’s lips are on his and there is no more want of a kiss, no more chasm. There is need, and there is want, and there is here and now and comfort. 

He had forgotten the intimacy of a kiss. 

Harry kisses Severus once more, on the corner of his mouth, and sighs, and sinks into the comfort of the soft ticking, arms wrapped around Severus. 

If kisses kill and Harry dies, Severus will kiss himself. 

And die happy. 

_Fin_


End file.
